So I pull this DVD out of the shelves and I see it stars Jack Nicholson and … Marlon Brando! Hmmm. Strange that I never heard or read any buzz on this flick, so it must be bad. But how can it be bad with Nicholson and Brando? Oh, right. Brando. The method ac-tore. The overindulgent, overpraised, insatiable ego. Yes, he was brilliant, I suppose, in the Godfather. Maybe, too, in Apocalypse Now, and those handful of movies from the 50s. But this is the man who played Doctor Moreau as an … acid-tripping bloated old hippie transvestite soft psychopath? The man who wanted Kal-El, Superman’s father, portrayed onscreen as a briefcase?
With Nicholson and Brando, no matter how bad it might be, it would be entertaining. So I took it out and watched it Saturday night.
And you know what? I actually liked it. I’d give it a B+ in my subjective grading system.
[Spoilers, pardner …]
The summary on the back of the DVD case is somewhat misleading, so let me briefly tell you what it’s about. The first half-hour is the set-up. The setting: the plains and mountains of Montana, sometime after the War Between the States and before the turn o’ the century. Specifically, ranchlands near the Missouri Breaks, which I take to be high cliffs and gulleys and whatnot where the strong river’s been cutting into the land for centuries untold. Old Man Braxton is the main rancher, patriarch and boss of the territory (every Western has one), who brutally – though fairly, it must be argued – enforces the law. The law Braxton’s most concerned with is rustling, horses in this instance. The movie opens with his men hanging a young rustler.
The young rustler happens to be part of Jack Nicholson’s gang. And what a colorful gang it is! Seriously. There’s a very young Randy Quaid, doing his patented “Aw shucks” Cousin Eddie routine. There’s Harry Dean Stanton, a few years before he became Alien chow, as Jack’s best friend and (unheralded) voice of caution. His moustache awed me to no end. There are two other dudes you’d recognize from dozens of other flicks; one looked like a young Dean Wormer, though I don’t think it was him. But they did look like an authentically stinky cowboy gang.
So in retaliation, though it’s not explicitly shown or mentioned in the film, Jack’s gang hangs Braxton’s sheriff. Which leads our local land baron to hire our top billed, Marlon Brando, as a “regulator,” to hunt down these rustlers responsible. And as explained in the movie, a “regulator” is kind of a cross between a bounty hunter and an assassin.
Sounds like a good set-up, no? A classic, archetypal western?
At around minute 35 or so, Brando makes his appearance. Braxton’s daughter (Kathleen Lloyd – hey, she’s from The Car! I had such a crush on her as a youngling!) spots a riderless mule ambling down a hill, and as it slows in front of her – pow! Marlon’s actually straddling the poor beast on its far side, and pops his head over the saddle, announcing his presence.
Brando plays Lee Clayton, and I was immediately reminded of that fringe-jacketed lawyer who was on all the cable news shows around the time of the OJ trial. Clayton next makes a dramatic appearance at the sheriff’s funeral, much like Quint in his chalkboard scene from Jaws, if Quint was an overtly flamboyant and histrionic method actor. However, Lee comes with references, and is legendarily lethal with his long-range rifle, and has never failed a job before. Braxton calms the locals and urges his regulator to start working. A half-hour slips by as we establish personalities and relationships, but before long, Clayton is killin’ Jack’s men one by one.
Apparently, part of Lee Clayton’s style is the art of disguise. I counted three Clayton accents during the movie: an Irish brogue, a Southern drawl, and Brando’s own nasal vocal stylings. In addition to the white fringe buckskin jacket, he also wears an assortment of scarves, a Roman collar, some odd felt pimp hats, and a Vietnamese rice bowl hat. I assume Marlon handled the wardrobe himself. The craziest disguise is a blue dress and a bonnet; after dispatching the last man of Jack’s gang he utters “Granny’s tired” and disappears into the woods.
Okay, so Brando’s a loose cannon here. Isn’t he in every movie he’s in? Nicholson, the actor, that is, is the one who’s caught in a bind. Normally Jack’s the one who’s allowed to be a little unhinged, a little south of center. Here he has to be somewhat normal and carry the audience’s sympathy. There are four encounters between Jack and Marlon, and you could almost see the frustration and annoyance in Jack’s eyes as he has to deal with Brando’s antics in each and every one.
However, like I said earlier, the movie is surprisingly good, especially if you can get past Lee Clayton’s anachronistic oddities. Each one of those encounters between our two protagonists is riveting. The first two are introductory meetings ’tween the two, and it’s all squintin’ and innuendo and veiled menace and foreshadowing. Later, after Clayton drowns Cousin Eddie (after bizarrely trying to put a cricket down Quaid’s sleeping mouth the night before – huh?), Jack confronts the portly killer as Lee’s bathing. Here we up the innuendo, unveil some of the menace, and leave out the squintin’ – a gun’s fired but no one’s hurt, though you know at the next meeting someone will get hurt, most likely kilt.
The final encounter between the two still leaves me with goosebumps. I’m not going to say right out what happens, but it’s something done so well it’s absolutely chilling. One man offs the other in a way I’ve never seen before – so minimal it’s almost like an impressionistic painting – and initially I felt cheated. But upon reflection I felt it would serve as a great lesson to modern-day filmmakers. Jerry Bruckheimer, take note! Michael Mann, pay attention! You don’t have to dispatch your villain with orange fireballs and gallons of blood and hundreds of machine gun squibs! Really, there are other, better ways.
So, overall, it’s not a bad flick. Maybe I liked it because of the weirdness Brando brung. Maybe I liked it because Nicholson is such a convincing actor, even though you know it’s Jack. Maybe I liked it because of the gang’s camaraderie, or the awkward romance between Jack and Kathleen, or all those archetypal Western themes. Probably, a little of each.
Rent it if you’re into this sort of stuff.
No comments:
Post a Comment